Monday, January 2, 2012

The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step One]

I don’t know if this will work for you, but if you were
to ask me, this is how I recovered my life. My story is a narrative of a life
lived on the extreme edge and you might find it hard to identify with some of
its elements. All I ask is that you try to identify with and not compare my
story. As they say, try listen to the message and not the mess.

It is my belief that all people, regardless of whether
they are addicts or not, can benefit from an application of the 12 steps.

I know there are many people who see the 12-step movement
as a cult, as misguided, or as a failure. That’s
fine. I have no interest in debating the merits of NA/ AA or in trying to
convince anyone. What follows is my experience as someone who’s been free of
addiction for 21 years.

* * *

Stopping the War

We admitted we were powerless over our
addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.

-- The First Step of Narcotics Anonymous

I was once told that my
spiritual principles were as a bridge back to life. What I didn’t know then was
that this bridge is built on the very bones of those who came before me. This
series of posts is an attempt to honor that.

The First Step confronted me with
two problematic words: powerless and unmanageable. I also didn’t notice at
first that every step began with the word “We.” I was a loner; “we” wasn’t a
word I used much. Everything was about me.
They say an addict is an egomaniac with low self-esteem, and I believe that was
how I felt.

Let me just say that 12-step
recovery is about action -- it is an experiential approach. Every step involves
growth, exploration, and some measure of action. I think people have huge
misconceptions about 12-Step Fellowships. People in recovery like to say that
the first step is the only step you have to get perfectly. I disagree, recovery
is an ongoing process, and my understanding of the first step expands as I
grow. However, there is a level of acceptance necessary for the integration of
this step. But I get ahead of myself…

There are several powerful
psycho-spiritual factors at work in the First Step. Primarily, there is an
admission. Admitting to a problem has become a popular notion in our culture
that first came to prominence in the recovery community. Admitting touches on
the first spiritual principle of the first step: honesty. However, admitting
means nothing without acceptance. For example, at one point in m y life I had
no problem admitting I was an addict; I could be honest about that. But that admission
and $2.50 got me on the train, which is another way of saying that admitting by
itself it is worthless. It wasn’t until I embraced another core spiritual
principle of the first step, acceptance, that I was then able to make changes
in my life.

The more meetings I made, the
more I heard my own story being told by others who were honest about
themselves. I began to see that I had a lot in common with these people when it
came to my addictive behaviors. On the other hand it took me a long time to
come to grips with powerlessness. I was raised to think of myself as powerful.
I was taught that if I exerted my will on any issue, that I could overcome
anything in the world. If I had enough cojones
and worked hard enough, I could have power over anything.

Besides, it wasn’t my addiction
that was the problem, it was everyone else. At least that was what I told
myself. If only other people got
their shit together and external
situations in my life corrected themselves, I wouldn’t be in such a fix. The
problem with my thinking was that it involved exerting willpower. The problem
with my willpower was that it was warped. The more willpower I exerted, the
more I fucked up. I tried everything: using only on the weekends, snorting
instead of intravenous injections, drinking instead of using other drugs, using
only certain drugs in certain combinations, etc. the irrefutable truth was that
no matter what I tried, I always
ended up in the same place: all fucked up.

Imagine a machinery part that
was made to perform only one action, or to move in only one direction or in one
specific way. No matter how much you oil that part, no matter how much you try
to fix it, it will still perform what is was meant to perform. If the part was
meant to move back and forth in a forward manner, no amount of lubrication will
make it move sideways. Similarly, if the only tool you have is a hammer, then
everything begins to look like a nail. My will was fucked up, meant to move in
a specific direction and no exertion of that will would bring about change. In
fact, my will often brought more
destruction.

Simply put, I came to the realization that if I wanted to change,
I needed to develop new tools, to come to terms that my will was really working
too well. And what that really meant for me was that in order to begin my
journey, I first had to surrender. In fact, as I look back now, the whole
process of recovery is one long, beautiful, liberating process of surrendering.

The First Step is like the
beginning of a hero’s journey. In the archetype of the hero (or errant knight),
most heroes begin reluctantly, clumsily, and then forces beyond their control
propel them past their ordinary lives into a journey of personal change and
renewal. Like most addicts, I was unaware of aspects of myself -- my feelings,
for example, and the wreckage I was creating. The first step freed me to begin
my quest for self-knowledge and transformation.

Admitting to powerlessness took
me years; accepting that admission brought me to the gateway of healing and
sanity. That was also about another core spiritual principle: willingness. Instead
of willfulness, what I needed was willingness.
It’s part of what is often called the HOW (honesty, openness, and willingness)
of recovery.

The common misperception about the
first step for those who have never tried to apply it is that it is defeatist. The first step is not about defeat. It
says powerlessness, not hopelessness. Powerlessness is not that uncommon and if
we open our eyes, we realize that we have no power over many things. Take the
weather, for example. You can’t stop the rain, but if you take the time to
stop, look, and listen, you may come to realize that using an umbrella is a lot
better that railing against the elements. Another thing we have no power over
is how others act or think, yet we spend enormous amounts of time and energy
trying to exert control over other people. Oftentimes, we don’t even have power
over our own emotions, but we can learn to relate to them differently.

The first step is really about
admitting powerlessness over living in the extremes. Try fighting the rain, or
better yet, a hurricane, and you’ll get a sense of what it is to fight
addiction. You have to surrender.

As part of taking the first
step, you take an inventory of the consequences of your addiction. For me this
meant documenting the jobs I lost, the people I hurt, and most of all, the harm
I did to myself. In this way, I could no longer deny the unmanageability of
life as an active addict. This was a hard nut to crack because I never wanted
to admit my life was unmanageable. I had it together, I liked to think, I just
went a little overboard sometimes.

I was also confronted with the
insanity of the obsession that led to the compulsion and how my fight would be futile
until I surrendered. If you’re fighting an inner war, then someone has to lose.
If you’re fighting an inner war, it follows, you, or an aspect of yourself, will always lose.

Taking the first step clearly
showed me that my thinking had little relationship to reality. There were
countless times, for example, that I would experience a blackout. A blackout doesn’t
entail being unconscious or comatose. In a blackout, you can sit down one
minute and the next thing you know you missed an entire episode of your life --
while conscious.

It’s similar to what I imagine a
time jumper would feel. One minute you’re in one time-space continuum and the next,
you’re somewhere else and what’s horrifying is that you don’t know what the
fuck is going on. One time coming out of a blackout, I had a whole house-full
of people wanting to kick my ass, and I had no clue why. It seems I propositioned
the bride-to-be (I was an engagement party) and that kinda pissed a few people
off. I once emerged out of a blackout in a different state and different year. It
happened during an extended New Year’s Eve celebration. Several days later, I
woke up in a strange house, sleeping nest to a strange woman and I had no
inkling of where I was or what day.

Still I couldn’t admit my
powerlessness. It wasn’t that something was wrong with me, I rationalized, it
was that other people were too stuck up or rigid, and besides, I know that
bitch at the engagement party wanted me. Perhaps you may have never experienced
this extreme form of powerlessness, but have you ever had a situation spiral
out of control to the point that you were at a loss?

Most of all, the first step is
the beginning of the undoing of the karmic consequences of denial. I had to be
brought my knees -- from hopelessly addicted to institutions and even close to
death -- and still I wouldn’t admit my powerlessness. There was definitely a
lot of evidence of unmanageability in my life. Shit, I attempted suicide at
least once. What “normal” person can say that? More than anything, I was
addicted to insanity.

Oh, and yes, I’ve kicked more
habits than I can remember. I just could never stay stopped. It was never
really hard kicking a habit. But addiction, I soon learned, was not merely about
substance abuse. I would get “clean” and chill for six-seven months, but when I
started again, it was as if I never stopped. My last day as an active addict, I
had spent $300 after having been released from an institution for exactly
fourteen days. I went from clean to a $300-a-day habit at the drop of a hat.

I would say that’s
unmanageable...

However, there are other ways
our powerlessness and unmanageability manifests in our lives. Whether it’s food
or cigarettes, or relationships, I think we can all look where we’re slowly
killing ourselves, suffering needlessly, or causing ourselves or our loved ones
harm. I believe we all can identify with the compulsive need to exert control
and the denial of powerlessness. I use my life as an example because the
extreme manner in which I lived it makes it easier to illustrate my points, but
we all have the dark places, the places that scare us.

Today, I apply the first step to
many things in my life, especially in relationships and to certain behaviors.
Addictions like to migrate. One might be able to kick the heroin or the
alcohol, but then you see people acting out sexually or financially. If you
don’t do the inner work, applying these principles in all your affairs, then
you’ll continue to be in the grips of addictive behavior. The first step
stipulated that I was powerless over my addiction.
Addiction is not about a substance, but a way of thinking.

Eventually, I began to think of
the first step as something similar to the concepts of Aikido or Wing Chun, two
martial arts that stress the importance of never meeting force with force. In a
sense, the first step is about learning to flow with the forces of life instead
of fighting all the time. It’s learning to transform difficult emotions into
opportunities for healing. It’s knowing that while you can’t stop the waves, you
can learn to surf.

My name is Eddie… Addict

Resources

Addiction is one of the most pressing problems in our society -- a
society that actually encourages consumption at the expense of substance. If
you think you have a problem, give yourself a break and try something new, it
might just save your life…

Alano: "The Online
Alano Club is a nonprofit association intended as a resource for Alcoholics
Anonymous® members and groups, as well as any individual who has a desire to
stop drinking. Members from other 12-Step programs, especially the Al-Anon
Family Groups, also are welcome."

Note: The featured artwork is
from Ben'h Usry, an artist who sells the prints online. I happen to like them.
His website features prints of all the 12 steps.

1 comment:

Hey! Someone in my Facebook group shared this site with us so I came to look it over. I'm definitely loving the information. I'm book-marking and will be tweeting this to my followers! Fantastic blog and wonderful design.

Headlines

Support This Blog

Follow Me

About Me

My life experiences have led me to strive to help others move their lives in a positive direction, exploring opportunities that would otherwise be closed to them. I like to think I sit at the crossroads of the dialectic between knowledge and action. I hope that what transpires here is reflective of my beliefs.